Egyptian Troops Toughen Stance at Gaza Border

Egyptian troops today continued to reassert control of the border with Gaza by using water cannon and laying down barbed wire to block Palestinians from leaving the territory.

Scuffles broke out between Gazans and Egyptians, witnesses said. Stones were thrown at the Egyptian forces, who responded by beating Palestinians with clubs and firing shots in the air.

Dozens of Hamas militants dressed in black stood on the Gaza side of the border, in front of the fallen wall at Rafah, checking people's bags and packages for weapons, drugs and other prohibited items as they re-entered Gaza.

Palestinians were still getting through to Egypt at other parts of the border wall, where Egyptian troops were making no effort to stop them.

The border breach, which has allowed tens of thousands of Palestinians to pour into Egypt, has boosted the popularity of Hamas Islamists, who claim they successfully penetrated the internationally supported Israeli blockade that has led to severe economic hardship.

Both Egypt and Israel restricted the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006. Gaza's economic squeeze was further tightened when Hamas seized control of the area by force last June.

Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 but pulled troops and settlers out in 2005, although it still controls the strip's northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters. It says it imposed the blockade as a response to militant rocket fire into southern Israel.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, yesterday raised the prospect of completely severing Israel's ties with the small strip of crowded Palestinian land.

However, his boss Ehud Barak, the defense minister, told the Associated Press at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he did not want to "go too far in my interpretation of this".

Egypt angrily rejected Israel's ideas and said it would not change border arrangements. "The border will go back as normal," said an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, Hossam Zaki. "The current situation is only an exception, and for temporary reasons."

Earlier, two separate Israeli air strikes on cars killed at least four Palestinian militants in Rafah, Gaza security officials and medical staff said.

In the West Bank, Jewish settlers shot dead two Palestinians and gunmen killed an Israeli border policeman in two separate incidents last night in areas that have been relatively calm for months.

A police spokesman said Palestinian gunmen shot an Israeli paramilitary border policeman and seriously wounded a female colleague at the Shuafat refugee camp in the West Bank, near Jerusalem.

The Israeli was the first fatality in the occupied West Bank since Palestinian gunmen shot and killed two off-duty soldiers near the city of Hebron last month.

In a second incident, Jewish settlers overpowered and shot dead two Palestinians who infiltrated the settlement of Kfar Etzion, near Bethlehem, an army spokeswoman said.